When 'Small' Expenses Matter: Saving Money On Food And Drink And At The Supermarket
A proud update on my discretionary spending
In today’s post, we shift gears slightly and consider discretionary spending on food, drink and groceries. I have not only cut my eating and drinking out spending, but have doubled down on saving at the supermarket. I’ll show you how I’m doing it.
It helps if—like me—you love supermarkets. I’m weird this way. By moving to Spain, I’m in for a treat. Because the supermarkets there are so much better than the ones in the United States, particularly California. I’ll briefly explain why, with much, much, much, much more to come on our February trip to Spain and once we move there. Expect me to go crazy on cost of living comparisons with real and hopefully compelling on-the-ground coverage!
This alone provides a good enough reason to pay for a subscription to this newsletter!
Anyway …
August is over.
And, as you might know, I wasn’t too proud having spent $671 in bars and restaurants in June.
In a mid-July update, here’s where things stood:
Restaurants and bars—$185.50. This includes a Fourth of July trip to Julian, California. So, without any other trips on the horizon until we visit my parents in Western New York in September, I don’t expect this number to go much higher. And I anticipate it might be even lower in August. We’ll see what happens.
Coffee shops—$29.50. Not bad.
And here’s how July ended:
$259.50 in restaurants and bars. And $85.50 at the coffee shop.
So the bar and restaurant spending decreased by $411.50, or 61.3%, between June and July.
Things got even better in August. This shift in spending matters, practically and psychologically, as my focus sits squarely on moving to Spain as soon as next year.
I’m not one of these people who thinks you should stop spending $5 a day on coffee if you can afford and enjoy doing it.
Generally, I don’t think small expenses—like this—matter. Ideally, they’re personal financial rounding errors.
However, sometimes small expenses do matter.